


What's Money When You Got Love?

by Fullmetalcarer



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: 1930s, Blood and Gore, Gangsters, Guns, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Knives, M/M, Misogyny, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prohibition, Rape, Revenge, Speakeasies, Swearing, Violence, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-15 11:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13030281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetalcarer/pseuds/Fullmetalcarer
Summary: It's the 1930s. Prohibition is in full swing and Sebastian Shaw is coining it. Erik Lehnsherr is at the heart of Shaw's criminal empire but he wants out. Then he meets Charles Xavier, a piano player in a speakeasy, and now he's desperate to get out. But what if he's drawing Charles into his dangerous world and into the orbit of Shaw? Can their love survive? Can they survive?PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS AND READ THE TAGS.





	What's Money When You Got Love?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deeranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deeranger/gifts).



Let's you and me have a heart to heart. I'm not much of a talker mostly, but I figure it's fair you get to know why I'm gonna kill you. Now calm down, no use throwing yourself around like that. The chair's real heavy and those knots are real tight. You're just gonna hurt yourself. See, your wrists are bleeding already. And screaming's plain foolish. We're in the middle of nowhere. Why do you think I didn't gag you?

I'm not one for those fancy stories that start at the end and jump all around the place before going back to the start. I'm gonna tell this tale the old fashioned way. Beginning. Middle. End.

My name's Erik Lehnsherr. I'm Jewish. From what I hear you ain't too fond of my people. Plenty of assholes ain't. My mama and papa are good people; not like me. They came over from Europe because they figured maybe folks wouldn't hate us so much over here. Jury's out on that one I guess. I was just a baby. I don't remember the old country. Mama and papa taught me the right ways and sent me to schul and school. Going to and from school was where the trouble started. See, some of the kids in the next neighbourhood were like you. Didn't like Jewish people. Probably learnt that from their parents. And if me or my friends got picked on, well, I'd fight back. My folks would tell me not to. And I'd try not to, believe me, I'd try, because I didn't want to make my papa frown and my mama cry.

My parents were garment workers. They were getting by until my mama got ill. We couldn't afford no doctor or medicine. My papa did something foolish. He took a loan from Sebastian Shaw. Yeah, I thought you'd have heard of him. Ugly business wasn't it? The story was splashed all over the papers. Don't look so worried, I didn't kill him. But I'm doing what I said I wouldn't, aren't I? I'm jumping forward in my story. Let's get back to my mama and papa. That loan paid for a doctor, a good one too. Oh, he looked down his nose at us, but he took papa's money and he knew what he was doing. Mama got better. I was so happy. I didn't understand why papa was still worried. Turns out he'd lost his job for taking too much time off to look after mama.

And there was the loan. The loan he couldn't pay back. First I knew about it was when I came home from school with a black eye and found a couple of guys beating up my papa. I didn't stop to think, I attacked 'em like some kinda wild animal. I was a skinny fourteen year old kid. They were doing a good job of beating me to a pulp, despite my mama begging and screaming, when this third fella told 'em to stop.

That's how I met Sebastian Shaw.

He saw something in me. Something vicious. Something dangerous. Something he could use. To cut a long story short I started working for him to pay off my papa's loan. Told my folks I was working in a warehouse. Truth is I was running numbers. Shaw was small time then, but as I grew up, his empire grew too. It was Prohibition that did it. Dumbest idea the government ever had, making alcohol illegal. Shaw went from small time to big time real quick and I went with him.

I paid back the loan. I got mama and papa a nice little house in a good Jewish neighbourhood, with a garden for mama to grow flowers and vegetables and a workshop for papa to make furniture. I told them I had a good job working in an office. I was always dressed nice and gussied up so why shouldn't they believe me? Shaw liked his enforcers to look smart. I had a gift for the work. Violence comes real easy to me. Most of the time the people I tangled with were like Shaw and his gang and me. Not good people. Beating the crap outta them didn't trouble my conscience. Killing scum like them never gave me any sleepless nights.

But every now and then it would be some ordinary schmuck. Someone who'd got mixed up in things they never should've. Someone like my papa. I know I'm going to Gehinnom when I die and those ordinary schmucks are the reason I won't be getting out.

I was one of Shaw's most trusted men. Part of his inner circle. And the deeper I got in, the more I wanted to get out. I was stashing away as much money as I could. I had a plan. I was going to move me and my folks clean across the country for a fresh start on the other side of the continent, far enough away from Shaw that he'd never find us.

Then I met Charles. Charles Francis Xavier. Yeah, that's right, your stepson. The kid you called a filthy degenerate and threw out of his own home and had his bitch of a mother disinherit. See, I'm a filthy degenerate too, Mr Marko, and the moment I saw Charles it was love at first sight.

I've always been careful to keep my tastes a secret, not because I'm ashamed, but because the world ain't kind to people like me. Or Charles. You weren't kind to him.

I first saw him in a speakeasy. Not a pansy club, a regular place. He was playing piano and singing. All those gangsters and whores and crooked politicians and dirty cops were quiet and listening. He played and sang like an angel. Looked like an angel too. I ain't a poetical man but his skin was like fresh cream and his hair was like waves on a dark ocean and his eyes were bluer than a summer sky and his lips were made to have the red kissed off of 'em. When he took his bow I saw he had a mighty fine ass too.

You know, Mr Marko, you might not want to look at me that way seeing as how I've got you tied to a chair and you know I'm a man prone to violence. That's better.

I'd never been in love before. Oh, I'd had plenty of fun with willing fellas but this wasn't fun, this was serious. I bought him a drink and told him how much I liked his act.

"You're too kind, it's just tin pan alley stuff."

"No, you're good, real good. Come on, you gotta know that."

"I trained as a concert pianist. I suppose that helps."

"A concert pianist? How come you're playing in a dump like this?"

"Oh, things . . . happened. Do you really think this place is a dump? It's rather high class compared to some of the dives I've played."

That accent of his. I could've listened to it all day.

"How come you talk like the King of England?"

He laughed.

"I'm as American as you are, my friend, but I spent most of my childhood in England. My father's business interests took us there. When we moved back to Westchester my mother insisted I keep the accent. She thought it lent a certain cachet."

Something happened to his face when he talked about his family, like a light had been switched off. Later on, when we were lovers, he told me about his father dying and his ice-cold bitch mother remarrying. He told me about you. About your son. About the beatings. The humiliation. He said the only good thing about you was your daughter from your first marriage, Raven. He could talk about Raven for hours. I used to get kinda jealous.

"We still see each other from time to time but not nearly as often as I'd like. We have to be careful. Kurt says he'll disinherit her if he catches her having anything to do with me. Raven says she doesn't care about her inheritance. She's too young to understand the power and freedom that kind of money gives."

Raven was nineteen. Charles was twenty-one but looked a lot younger with that baby face of his. You know all that though, don't you? I'll tell you something you don't know. Me, I'm only twenty-five. Wouldn't think it, would you? I look ten years older. Kinda life I lead will do that to a man.

Once me and Charles were a thing, I put a hurry on my plans to get the hell out and away. I'd never told Charles exactly what I did for a living, but he knew it wasn't legal. I let him think I was some kinda thief. I didn't want him to know what I truly was. He was happy to come with me so long as he could come back east and meet up with Raven from time to time. He got all excited about it.

"She'll get some of her money at twenty-one. She can come out to live with us in California. That bastard won't be able to stop her once she's of age and independently wealthy."

"That bastard" was you by the way. Charles didn't have too high an opinion of you, Mr Marko.

I introduced him to my parents as a friend I'd met in a speakeasy. Charles didn't want to lie to them, see. He didn't like lying. He wanted to stick as close to the truth as he could. They didn't like the idea of me going to places like that or having friends who worked in them.

"You're a good boy, Erik, with a good job. It's crazy to risk your career for a taste of booze," said my papa.

If only they'd known.

They soon changed their minds about Charles. Mama damn near adopted him. We were careful around my folks. They believed we were all moving out west due to me getting promoted, and Charles was coming along for the ride because he wanted a fresh start. I think my papa really believed it. He grumbled about having to up sticks but I knew he was looking forward to the move. He liked change, my papa. My mama, well, she never said anything outright about me and Charles, but sometimes I got the feeling she knew.

"You know I love you, boychik, and your friend Charles is like another son to me. I'm happy so long as my boys are happy."

"Course I'm happy, mama, and as for Charles, why he's a ray of sunshine."

He was too. The fresh start bit was true as well. Charles was planning on going to college.

"I can study during the day and earn some money playing in bars at night."

"You don't need to work no bars, baby. I'll get a job. Besides I got enough saved to support you and mama and papa till the cows come home."

"You're sweet, Erik, but I want to contribute."

"I ain't sweet, you're the one who's sweet. Only sweet I am is sweet on you."

He kissed me and soon it was all hands and mouths and cocks and come.

Oh, you need to get much better at hiding what you're thinking, Mr Marko. I figure I'm gonna have to give your ugly mug a little tap. There. Well, that sure made me feel fine and your face looks a whole heap better covered in blood. Guess you think it's all about fucking, don't you? A couple of sick, disgusting perverts doing sick, disgusting things to each other. What would a scum bag like you know about love?

It was perfect. Course it couldn't last and it was my fault it didn't.

We were two days from moving. Two days. Sometimes two days can make more difference than two years. The house in San Francisco was all ready and waiting. My folks had packed up everything that was coming with 'em. Charles had packed the little he had to bring. I didn't have much more than him, save for my fancy duds. I was planning on leaving them behind. I didn't want 'em anymore. I'd got myself a job as a mechanic so I wouldn't be needing no spiffy suits. I like fixing things. I'm like my papa that way. With him it's clothing and furniture. With me it's anything metal, from pots and pans to automobiles. I hadn't worked out yet how I was gonna explain to my parents why I'd be working in a garage when I was supposed to be an accountant.

I was sure and certain I'd got Shaw and his cronies fooled; even his woman, Emma Frost. That gal looked like a dumb blonde and acted like one too. Shaw's goons were respectful to her face because they didn't want Shaw ripping their tongues out, but behind her back, when Shaw wasn't around, they said all kinds of stuff. I bet you know the kind of thing, Mr Marko. I bet you talk about women that way, like they're pieces of meat. I never joined in and not just because I'm the way I am. I don't like that kind of talk. It's disrespectful. Besides, Frost always seemed like she was playing dumb to me, like there was something diamond sharp and diamond hard under the peroxide blonde hair and scanty white dresses.

It was gone five and I thought I'd swing by the club and see Charles. Place didn't open until seven. There wouldn't hardly be anyone there except cleaners and barkeeps and maybe a few of the girls. I liked it like that. Quiet. No clientele. It was peaceful.

As soon as I walked in the joint I knew something was wrong. Azazel, another of Shaw's enforcers, was sitting at the bar.

"What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too, Lehnsherr."

"I said, what are you doing here?"

"Shaw heard you were spending a lot of time in this dump. You know how suspicious he gets. He thought he'd check it out."

"So he sent you?"

"Nope. He came himself. He's in one of the back rooms. Soon as the barkeep told him how "friendly" you were with that piano player, he figured it all out. You know, I never had you down as a faggot, Lehnsherr. Shaw wasn't one bit surprised. Specially when he saw your boy. I gotta say, that pansy is prettier than most of the broads I've fucked. Shaw thought so too. Decided he'd like a taste. You don't - "

He didn't get no further because I stabbed him through the heart. Used the stiletto from up my sleeve. Slipped between his ribs nice and easy.

I headed for the back at a sprint. It was easy to find the right room because I could hear Charles screaming. I grabbed for my gun and busted down the door. Charles was bent over the back of a chair. He was naked, his hands were tied in front of him and someone had done a real number on his face. Shaw had a knife to Charles' throat and was thrusting into him, hard and fast, pants around his ankles. Shaw looked up. I crossed the room in two strides and shoved my gun in his face.

"Drop the knife."

He dropped it. Then he smiled. That dirty fucker smiled.

Someone hit me on the back of the head.

When I came to the first thing I saw was Shaw's ugly grin. I was sprawled on the floor with my hands tied behind my back and my ankles bound with curtain ties. Shaw stood over me holding my gun. Janos stood next to him. It must have been Janos who hit me. Charles lay on the floor behind them, curled up like a hurt child, blood streaking his ass and thighs. For a moment I thought . . . then he breathed a long, shuddering breath.

"I'm disappointed in you, Erik. You were nothing when I found you. Nothing. A dumb, skinny kid who'd have ended up sewing suits like his loser father. I gave you the opportunity to make something of yourself. And you did. There's a rage inside you I admire and you put it to good use working for me. And now I've gotta kill you. What a waste. You know I've gotta kill you, don't you? You were planning on running out on me. Can't let you get away with that. And of course there's Azazel. I'll miss his way with a knife. He's a big loss to the organisation."

I managed to get myself up onto my knees. I looked at Charles. He was still curled up into a ball. I was a goner, but there was a chance he could get out of this alive.

"I guess I got it coming, boss. Am I gonna get it easy or hard?"

Shaw laughed and smacked me across the face with the gun.

"Oh, Erik, surely you know me well enough by now to figure out the answer to that?"

I spat blood and a couple of teeth and hitched myself back onto my knees.

"Go to it then."

He laughed again.

"First let's put your pansy boy out of his misery. Janos."

Janos grabbed Charles and hauled him to his knees in front of Shaw. Shaw put the muzzle of the gun, my gun, to Charles' forehead. Charles' face was blank and bruised and his head lolled.

My turn to laugh. That got Shaw's attention.

"Leave him be. He's nothing. Just a fuck. Just some fairy I'm fucking. Don't waste a bullet on him. Let him go. I'm the one you want. Come on, let me have it. You know you want to, you shrivelled-up, shit-eating, piss-sucking excuse for a man. I ain't the faggot, you are. You know Frost's fucking half the city, don't you? Heard tell it's because you can't get it up. Can't get a hard-on to save your life because you'd rather be sucking cock than fucking pussy."

That got me a kick to the ribs. When I got myself to my knees again, and wasn't that a riot with my hands tied behind my back and a couple of busted ribs, Shaw was smiling.

"Well, well, well. Little Erik Lehnsherr has a heart after all and he's given it to this piece of shit. He's a great fuck, Erik, I'll give you that, his ass was tight as a virgin's cunt round my cock, but he ain't worth dying for."

He slapped Charles' face. Charles head slammed sideways but he didn't react. My Charles. My baby. My sweetheart. Last time I cried I was nine years old, Mr Marko. I sure felt like crying then. Shaw was gonna kill him and I was gonna watch because it was the least I owed Charles, not to look away no matter what. Even bruised and bloodied and broken he was beautiful. I just wished he'd look at me one last time. Then he did. He lifted his head and looked right at me, then down at his hands, which were tied in front of him. Something glittered between his fingers. Shaw's knife. He looked back up at me and I knew. He wasn't broken.

Shaw slapped him again, harder this time. He fell to the floor and grovelled at Shaw's feet.

"Say goodbye to your little whore, Lehnsherr."

Shaw cocked the gun.

Charles stabbed him behind the knee.

Shaw yelled and went down like a ton of bricks. The gun went off.

Janos took his eyes off of me and went to draw his gun. I hit him smack in the gut with my head, winding him. I shoved hard and he fell. I ended up lying half on top of him. My ribs were on fire. He scrabbled for his gun with one hand and punched me in the face with the other. I jackknifed up him like a fucking salmon and sank my teeth into his throat. He kept trying for his gun and dug his fingers into my face, desperate to drag me off. I wouldn't let go. I kept tearing away, mouth full of meat and blood and gristle. Blood in my nostrils. Blood in my eyes. He screamed and bucked and kicked and threw me off. I landed on my back with a chunk of him between my teeth. He lay on his side, blood pouring out of the ragged wound in his neck.

He drew his gun.

I tried to move.

I couldn't.

Everything hurt.

Charles.

Janos' head slumped to one side. The gun slipped from his fingers. His eyes closed. He stopped breathing. Blood pooled around us.

I didn't feel too good. I kinda just wanted to lay there and die.

Charles.

Charles.

Charles.

I couldn't move.

I moved.

I rolled over onto my side. Everything spun around me like I was on a goddamn Ferris wheel. Pain. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. My ribs were the worst. My eyes were swelling closed and I couldn't hardly see a thing. I opened 'em as wide as I could.

Charles was sitting astride Shaw's chest. He was stabbing him in the face. Over and over and over. The blade of the knife was broken. Probably broke it on the bone. Takes some force to do that. He was stronger than he looked, my Charlie boy. Pale skin gleamed with dark blood. Shaw's head jerked with the force of the blows. He was dead. Ain't nobody could live with the whole front of their face carved into a bloody pulp.

"Charles."

I tried to call to him but nothing came out of my mouth.

Then the door opened. Emma Frost. Shaw's moll. Immaculate in white. Holding a gun. Charles didn't even look up, just kept on stabbing. She took it all in.

She made a moue of distaste.

"Why do men have to make such a mess?"

I passed out.

Pretty suspenseful, huh, Mr Marko? Had we survived Shaw only to have Frost kill us? I'll let you in on a secret; we made it. Course you know that already because I'm sitting right here in front of you. Bet you wish I wasn't.

Anyways, turns out Frost wanted Shaw dead. She'd been the brains behind the outfit for years. Lately he'd stopped listening to her and started treating her like the dumb broad she pretended to be. He'd slapped her around some too. We'd done her a favour.

She got us to a doctor who knew to keep his mouth shut. He patched us up. I sent a message to my folks telling them the move was delayed because of my work. Took a week for us to get healed up enough to travel. When my folks saw us they nearly had a fit. Told 'em we'd been in an automobile wreck and hadn't wanted to worry them. Mama scolded me like I was a naughty schoolboy. She didn't scold Charles though. She spoke to him real soft and touched him real gentle and he cried on her shoulder like a baby.

We've been in San Francisco almost a year now. Settled in real well. My folks were kind of disappointed I gave up the accountant job, but they understood about me wanting to work with my hands. Charles is studying music at college. He's doing fine. Mostly. Doesn't hardly have nightmares anymore. Goes into a kinda trance sometimes. And sometimes things set him off and I'll find him shut in a wardrobe, shaking and crying. That don't happen too much nowadays. I haven't woke up to find him standing over me with a knife for months.

He forgave me. Said it wasn't my fault. But I know I'm to blame and I can't ever make it up to him. I'm gonna try though.

And that's why we're here, Mr Marko. Charles' memories have gotten all stirred up by what happened. He's remembering things from when he was a kid. Things you did to him. He made me promise not to do anything. I promised. He believed me. What can I say? I'm a liar.

I'm gonna beat you half to death, pour a bottle of rot-gut down your stinking throat, shove you in your fancy car, jam the gas pedal and send it off a cliff. Automobiles don't catch fire as easy as people think, so I might have to climb down and make sure you burn. It'll look like an accident.

That's right, you beg like he begged, you cry like he cried. Money? You think I'd take your money, you sick, disgusting pervert?

What's money when you got love?


End file.
